Political Capital » climate changehttp://go.bloomberg.com/political-capital
Politics blog featuring the latest news and analysis from Washington and the US. Political editors provide insights & data about today’s politics.Thu, 07 Aug 2014 19:48:32 +0000en-UShourly1http://wordpress.org/?v=3.8.2EPA Rule: Legal Backing for Climate Plan — or ‘Lipstick on a Pig’http://go.bloomberg.com/political-capital/2014-06-18/epa-rule-legal-backing-climate-plan-lipstick-pig/
http://go.bloomberg.com/political-capital/2014-06-18/epa-rule-legal-backing-climate-plan-lipstick-pig/#commentsWed, 18 Jun 2014 20:43:44 +0000http://blogs.edit.bloomberg.com/political-capital/?p=133987Buried in the Environmental Protection Agency’s plan to cut carbon-dioxide emissions, which was published in the Federal Register today, is a second rule that may provide a crucial legal backstop to the plan. The EPA’s proposed rule to cut the carbon from existing power plants was accompanied by a second, little-noticed rule that sets standards […]

Buried in the Environmental Protection Agency’s plan to cut carbon-dioxide emissions, which was published in the Federal Register today, is a second rule that may provide a crucial legal backstop to the plan.

The EPA’s proposed rule to cut the carbon from existing power plants was accompanied by a second, little-noticed rule that sets standards for power plants that are modified or reconstructed. While the standards for those plants can be met with little effort at coal or natural-gas units, the rule may provide a secondary legal girding for the more wide-reaching existing-plant plan.

“It gives another legal justification for” the second rule, said Nathan Richardson, a lawyer and resident scholar at Resources for the Future in Washington.

Understanding what’s at stake requires a bit of legal background. The EPA is using a provision of the Clean Air Act, known as section 111, to set the first carbon standards for power plants. Under that section, which is used for pollutants not specifically spelled out in the act, EPA must first use section 111(b) to set a standard for new plants, which applies nationwide. Once the rule is in place for the new plants, it triggers the requirement from 111(d) that states issue a plan to cover existing sources of pollution. The EPA issues guidelines for those state plans, and must approve them.

The agency’s 111(d) plan’s publication in the Federal Register today sets up a 120-day comment period.

In the case of carbon dioxide, the biggest climate gains are forecast to come from the rules for existing sources; however, legal analysts say the EPA’s proposal for new sources is legally vulnerable because the agency proposed a requirement that new coal plants install carbon-capture technology. No U.S. power plant is using it at commercial scale today, and so industry critics say it’s not a justified standard.

As a result, that could be overturned by a court, and if it’s gone, so goes the legal justification for the existing sources proposal.

“I think there are significant vulnerabilities to” the new-source plan, Thomas Lorenzen, a lawyer at Dorsey & Whitney in Washington and former government environment litigator, said in an interview. “It could jeopardize their existing-source plan if it got thrown out.”

And that’s where EPA’s proposed rule for modified sources comes in. It’s also a 111(b) rule, and it doesn’t require carbon-capture technology, which means its legal vulnerability is limited.

“Either of those section 111(b) rulemakings will provide the requisite predicate for this rulemaking,” the agency said in a legal memorandum for the existing-sources plan, which was released June 2.

Not every outside expert believes this statement from agency lawyers will be enough to bolster the EPA’s legal justification.

“It’s an attempt to put lipstick on a pig,” said Scott Segal, a lawyer at Bracewell & Giuliani in Washington who represents utilities dependent on coal that are critical of the rule. “This is very thin ice.”

Still, Richardson said that if EPA sticks to its guns and requires carbon-capture, and if a court tosses that rule out, the federal government could rely on the second 111(b) rule while reissues the standard for new plants.

“We are only talking about the time it takes to replace the new 111(b) rule, which shouldn’t be too long,” Richardson said.

And there’s always another possibility: Before the EPA finalizes its rule for new plants, it could scale back that requirement and not require carbon-capture equipment for coal plants. That would be a “conservative game,” but one that wouldn’t come with as much of a legal risk, Lorenzen said.

]]>http://go.bloomberg.com/political-capital/2014-06-18/epa-rule-legal-backing-climate-plan-lipstick-pig/feed/0Bloomberg by the Numbers: 24.6%http://go.bloomberg.com/political-capital/2014-06-03/bloomberg-numbers-24-6/
http://go.bloomberg.com/political-capital/2014-06-03/bloomberg-numbers-24-6/#commentsTue, 03 Jun 2014 09:00:00 +0000http://blogs.edit.bloomberg.com/political-capital/?p=132366The Environmental Protection Agency announced a new pollution-cutting rule Monday with enough facts and figures to bury anyone beneath numerical rubble for weeks on end. In the avalanche, the most relevant figure to remember may be 24.6 percent. The regulation, which is not due to be finalized for another year, is most often expressed as […]

Emissions at the coal fired Morgantown Generating Station, on May 29, 2014 in Newburg, Maryland.

The Environmental Protection Agency announced a new pollution-cutting rule Monday with enough facts and figures to bury anyone beneath numerical rubble for weeks on end. In the avalanche, the most relevant figure to remember may be 24.6 percent.

The regulation, which is not due to be finalized for another year, is most often expressed as a 30-percent reduction in carbon dioxide emissions by the year 2030,

But there are plenty of other numbers that are just as useful. They range from different ways of calculating the actual cut in carbon emissions to calculations of the benefits and costs of the proposed rule to the value of certain health afflictions associated with carbon dioxide pollution. Here’s a look at the EPA rule by the numbers:

30% — That’s the big, round number the White House and EPA are using to promote the rule as a major victory for environmental protection and public health. How do they get that big a number? It is measured against the level of carbon dioxide emitted in 2005, one of the highest years on record.

15% — The reduction in CO2 emissions already achieved since the administration’s baseline year of 2005.

17% — The CO2 cut required by 2030 as compared with current levels.

24.6% — The CO2 cut required of states in 2030 compared with the level that EPA estimates would be emitted that year without the new rule. For some, this is the most apples-to-apples comparison of what the rule requires.

$55 billion to $93 billion — The value of the economic and public health benefits that the EPA says will accrue to the American public in 2030 under the new rule.

$43 billion to $74 billion — The net value of the economic and public health benefits President Barack Obama told members of Congress would be reaped by the rule in the year 2025. The EPA also noted this net range — after costs are taken into account — in the materials it released on Monday.

$7.3 billion to $8.8 billion — The annual cost of complying with the rule in 2030, according to EPA.

$200,000 — The value the EPA assigns to a person between the ages of 55 and 64 avoiding a non-fatal heart attack in the year 2020.

$98,000 — The value the EPA assigns to a person under the age of 25 or over the age of 64 avoiding a non-fatal heart attack in the year 2020.

$480 — The amount the EPA figures a person would pay to avoid six days of acute bronchitis in 2020.

$16 — The EPA’s calculation of the average amount a person would pay in 2020 to avoid having his or her eyes irritated.

]]>http://go.bloomberg.com/political-capital/2014-06-03/bloomberg-numbers-24-6/feed/0Greenhouse Gas Limit Supported: ABC/Post Pollhttp://go.bloomberg.com/political-capital/2014-06-02/greenhouse-gas-limit-supported-abcpost-poll/
http://go.bloomberg.com/political-capital/2014-06-02/greenhouse-gas-limit-supported-abcpost-poll/#commentsMon, 02 Jun 2014 17:21:16 +0000http://blogs.edit.bloomberg.com/political-capital/?p=132316The White House probably can count on some public support for the regulations on power plant emissions it rolled out today — even if it costs consumers something in the process. That’s the word from an ABC News/Washington poll released today, as the Environmental Protection Agency announced more than 600 pages of rules aimed at […]

Residents photograph the burning ruins of their home that was destroyed in the Poinsettia fire, one of nine wildfires fueled by wind and record temperatures that erupted in San Diego County throughout the day, on May 14, 2014 in Carlsbad, California.

The White House probably can count on some public support for the regulations on power plant emissions it rolled out today — even if it costs consumers something in the process.

That’s the word from an ABC News/Washington poll released today, as the Environmental Protection Agency announced more than 600 pages of rules aimed at curbing greenhouse gas emissions by 30 percent.

Seventy percent of those surveyed said the government should limit the release of greenhouse gases from power plants to reduce global warming.

If significantly lowered greenhouse gases raised monthly energy expenses by $20 a month, 63 percent still said the government should do so. The figure was offered as a hypothetical to gauge the impact of a pinch on the household budget on people’s thinking.

]]>http://go.bloomberg.com/political-capital/2014-06-02/greenhouse-gas-limit-supported-abcpost-poll/feed/0Climate Change: Here and Now — What Next?http://go.bloomberg.com/political-capital/2014-05-07/climate-change-now/
http://go.bloomberg.com/political-capital/2014-05-07/climate-change-now/#commentsWed, 07 May 2014 15:25:57 +0000http://blogs.edit.bloomberg.com/political-capital/?p=130160“The assessment is clear.” – President Barack Obama. “Not only is climate change a problem in the future,” the president said in an interview aired today by CBS News. “It’s already affecting Americans.” The climate report ordered by Congress and co-authored by 300 scientists concluded that “global warming is already having an effect in the […]

Destroyed houses and palm trees in Sulyan Village on the coastline of Eastern Samar, the Philippines, on Nov. 20, 2013, after Super Typhoon Haiyan.

“The assessment is clear.”

– President Barack Obama.

“Not only is climate change a problem in the future,” the president said in an interview aired today by CBS News. “It’s already affecting Americans.”

The climate report ordered by Congress and co-authored by 300 scientists concluded that “global warming is already having an effect in the U.S.” as Mark Drajem and Jim Efstathiou report. “The result is more coastal flooding, heavier Eastern rainstorms and longer, more intense droughts in the West.”

“More people are at risk. More homes are lost,” Obama said in the CBS News “This Morning” interview. “More lives are potentially lost. It’s going to impact people in severe, significant ways that cost money.”

Republican leaders remain skeptical about the findings of the report. Even those acknowledging the problem say the U.S. isn’t alone in the search for solutions.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, facing a competitive reelection fight back home in Kentucky, says the White House’s weather words are playing to the “liberal elites.”

“But the vast majority of Middle Class Kentuckians I represent actually have to worry about things like paying utility bills,” he said yesterday.“And putting food on the table. And finding a job in this terrible economy. They’re less interested in ‘just doing something’ on energy — they want to do the smart thing. What they want are practical solutions to the problems and the stresses they’re dealing with every day…

“And one thing that seems clear is this: even if we were to enact the kind of national energy regulations the president seems to want so badly, it would be unlikely to meaningfully impact global emissions anyway unless other major industrial nations do the same.”
Al Roker, one of the TV weather gurus who joined the White House in the publicity surrounding the climate report yesterday, said on NBC News’ “Today” show that: “This report has taken years to complete, with input from hundreds of scientists and technical experts. The president’s saying the report’s conclusion is clear. If we want to stop climate change, the time to act is now.”

“Well, I’ll tell you,” Obama said in an interview aired by Today, “we’ve been sounding this urgency for the last five years. If we don’t do more, we’re going to have bigger problems, more risk of economic impact and more risk of extreme weather events that can result in people losing their lives or losing their properties or businesses. And we’ve got to have the public understand this is an issue that is going to impact our kids and our grandkids unless we do something about it.”

“The public knows this is a problem. They’re concerned about it. But they don’t know if they can do anything about it. They think it’s something in the distant future. And politicians generally, you know, up in Congress are not going to get out too far in front of the public. And that’s why the public’s voice has to be heard on this.”

Still the problem of climate change has not become a high public priority, according to polls. Obama was asked on CBS, is there a way to change that?

“By publicizing the fact that there are real costs,” he said, “not out in the distant future, but right now.”

]]>http://go.bloomberg.com/political-capital/2014-05-07/climate-change-now/feed/0EPA’s McCarthy: Science Realhttp://go.bloomberg.com/political-capital/2014-04-28/epas-mccarthy-science-real/
http://go.bloomberg.com/political-capital/2014-04-28/epas-mccarthy-science-real/#commentsMon, 28 Apr 2014 16:57:18 +0000http://blogs.edit.bloomberg.com/political-capital/?p=129071Updated April 29 at 12:50 pm EDT Since she was first nominated to head the Environmental Protection Agency, Gina McCarthy has worked hard to assuage Republican and industry critics of the agency’s scientific process, including promising data from decades-old studies in order to win her confirmation. Yesterday she punched back. “You can’t just claim the […]

Since she was first nominated to head the Environmental Protection Agency, Gina McCarthy has worked hard to assuage Republican and industry critics of the agency’s scientific process, including promising data from decades-old studies in order to win her confirmation.

Yesterday she punched back.

“You can’t just claim the science isn’t real when it doesn’t align well with your political or financial interests,” McCarthy said in a speech to the National Academy of Sciences in Washington. “My guess is that those critics that distrust the most trustworthy institutions — and vilify the work of reputable scientists and EPA — are not trying to provide scientific clarity.”

McCarthy didn’t identify who the critics are, but it’s not hard to match suspects to her descriptions. While McCarthy sought Senate confirmation last year, Louisiana Republican David Vitter pushed the EPA to provide data from what he called “secret science” by Harvard University linking air pollution to asthma and health disease.

“EPA’s leadership is willfully ignoring the big picture and defending EPA’s practices of using science that is, in fact, secret due to the refusal of the agency to share the underlying data with Congress and the American public,” Vitter said in response to McCarthy’s speech today.

Georgia Republican Rep. Paul Broun got the EPA’s inspector general to investigate agency scientists research on human subjects. The watchdog report largely backed the agency’s scientists, while offering limited criticisms of the research.

McCarthy said that those EPA scientists who did the tests on individuals have been publicly vilified, had facilities vandalized and faced threats to their ability to practice
medicine or conduct research.

“Critics keep launching empty allegations at the work of experts without regard for the damage left behind,” she said. They “are playing a dangerous game by discrediting the sound science our families and our businesses depend on every day.”

Her critics weren’t cowed.

They took to Twitter and the hashtag #NAS151 to try to rebut her talk, with the account of JunkScience.com, a longtime EPA critic, quoting William Shakespeare’s “Macbeth”:

McCarthy’s talk in Washington wrapped up with a discussion about the largest scientific dispute surrounding the agency: climate change. With EPA a month away from issuing its first rules to limit greenhouse gases from existing power plants, many Republicans in Congress still doubt the science linking those gases to warming global temperatures.

“The science tells us climate change is not the product of conspiracies or political agendas,” she said. “And if there’s one thing we know with 100 percent certainty, it’s that denial and inaction are the biggest dangers of all.”

“If 97 out of 100 doctors said you were really sick— I’d say it’s pretty risky to go with 3 that didn’t. Climate evidence is clear.” #NAS151

A coal-fired power station in Iwaki City, Fukushima Prefecture, Japan.

Environmental activist Bill McKibben is asking people, institutions and governments to divest holdings of fossil fuel companies in a bid to avert the worst impacts of climate change.

If companies and governments produce and burn all their reserves of coal and oil, temperatures will surpass a level many scientists say will trigger catastrophic climate change, McKibben said today in at the Bloomberg New Energy Finance conference in New York. Starving fossil fuel producers of capital, he said, is the best way to to ensure that carbon-dioxide producing fuels stay in the ground.

“If the fossil fuel companies and countries carry out these business plan as they are currently written then the planet will tank,” McKibben said. “Either we leave that stuff in the ground or the planet burns up. Those are our two choices.”

McKibben, who may be best known for helping to turn the once obscure Keystone XL pipeline into a high-stakes political battle, has been pressing the two-year-old divestment campaign through the group he founded, 350.org. The effort is targeting churches, schools and governments with a message that the morally right thing to do is stop funding fossil fuels.

Reject and Protect: a closing argument against Keystone XL, led by the people who have been fighting it longest. http://t.co/RDw3PWUCJo

“Anybody who’s investing in fossil fuels at this point is in essence making a bet, and what they’re betting is that the world will do nothing about climate change,” McKibben said. Cities such as Seattle, Washington, Portland, Oregon and Providence, Rhode Island have agreed to divest, he said.

The effort is getting a lift from floods, droughts and killer storms that are helping to raise public awareness of the risks of climate change.

“One of the things that lifts the consciousness around this issues is the excellent educational efforts of Mother nature year after year,” McKibben said. “Eighty percent of Americans live in a county that’s had a federally declared disaster in the last two years.”

]]>http://go.bloomberg.com/political-capital/2014-04-08/mckibben-holding-fossil-fuel-stock-betting-on-global-warming/feed/0Kashkari: Climate Change Not Causing California Droughthttp://go.bloomberg.com/political-capital/2014-04-02/kashkari-climate-change-not-causing-california-drought/
http://go.bloomberg.com/political-capital/2014-04-02/kashkari-climate-change-not-causing-california-drought/#commentsWed, 02 Apr 2014 15:56:37 +0000http://blogs.edit.bloomberg.com/political-capital/?p=126607As California grapples with water-use restrictions, worsened smog and idled farmland following the driest year on record, Neel Kashkari says climate change isn’t to blame. While the former U.S. Treasury official running for the Republican nomination in California’s gubernatorial race calls himself a student of science who believes climate change is real, Kashkari, 40, said […]

As California grapples with water-use restrictions, worsened smog and idled farmland following the driest year on record, Neel Kashkari says climate change isn’t to blame.

While the former U.S. Treasury official running for the Republican nomination in California’s gubernatorial race calls himself a student of science who believes climate change is real, Kashkari, 40, said in an interview that he wants to avoid a rush to judgment.

“The way politicians use short-term weather events to advocate their climate agenda, I think, actually does more harm to the overall issue than good,” he said at Bloomberg headquarters in New York. “California has had droughts periodically for all of recorded history so the idea, ‘Well, we have this drought, oh therefore it must be climate change,’ you end up conflating two different issues.”

Asked to clarify whether he sees California’s current drought as at all related to climate change, the former Goldman Sachs Group Inc. executive stood firm: “No, not at all,” he said. “I’d say we have a drought, and we have a separate long term issue of climate change. And they need to be addressed appropriately.”

Kashkari’s comments place him in the center of an ongoing debate about extreme weather events such as the U.S. West’s dry conditions and whether human-caused climate change is increasing their frequency. John P. Holdren, a science adviser to President Barack Obama, for instance, contends there’s a link. Roger Pielke Jr., a longtime climate researcher at the University of Colorado, argues otherwise.

Kashkari is seeking to unseat Gov. Jerry Brown, 75, a Democrat who’s the longest-serving governor of the most populous state. In order to prepare for future droughts, he advocates scrapping Brown’s $68 billion high-speed rail project in favor of building more water storage.

The latest public poll shows Kashkari, who managed Treasury’s $700 billion bank bailout known as the Troubled Asset Relief Program, with 2 percent support, trailing Assemblyman Tim Donnelly, a Tea Party-backed Republican, at 10 percent and Brown at 47 percent. Just over two months remain before June’s so- called open primary, where the top two vote-getters, regardless of party, advance to the November general election.

Kashkari, on a trip to New York and Washington for fundraising, media appearances and meetings with fellow Republicans, returns to California tomorrow.

]]>http://go.bloomberg.com/political-capital/2014-04-02/kashkari-climate-change-not-causing-california-drought/feed/0Senate’s Climate Change All-Nighter: Look Who’s Skipping the Partyhttp://go.bloomberg.com/political-capital/2014-03-10/senates-climate-change-all-nighter-look-whos-skipping-the-party/
http://go.bloomberg.com/political-capital/2014-03-10/senates-climate-change-all-nighter-look-whos-skipping-the-party/#commentsMon, 10 Mar 2014 14:34:55 +0000http://blogs.edit.bloomberg.com/political-capital/?p=123773Bring out the cots! A group of Senate Democrats will stage an all-night session of the Senate tonight to discuss a matter the party has no plans to touch legislatively in this election year: Climate change. The group, led by Sens. Brian Schatz of Hawaii, Sheldon Whitehouse of Oregon and Barbara Boxer of California, aims […]

A housing development above the smog-filled valley of Salt Lake City in Utah.

Bring out the cots!

A group of Senate Democrats will stage an all-night session of the Senate tonight to discuss a matter the party has no plans to touch legislatively in this election year: Climate change.

The group, led by Sens. Brian Schatz of Hawaii, Sheldon Whitehouse of Oregon and Barbara Boxer of California, aims to “wake up Congress to the dangers of climate change,” Boxer, chairwoman of the Environment and Public Works Committee, said in a statement.

Twenty-eight senators are listed as potential participants. Notably, the four Senate Democrats seeking re-election in states that Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney won in 2012 – Mark Begich of Alaska, Kay Hagan of North Carolina, Mary Landrieu of Louisiana and Mark Pryor of Arkansas — are not among them.

Republicans used House passage of cap-and-trade legislation as prime campaign ad fodder in the 2010 midterm elections, when Democrats took a historic beating and lost control of the House.

While unusual, senators do periodically force all-night sessions to call attention to issues.

Texas Republican Sen. Ted Cruz kept the chamber in session overnight in September to demand limits on Obamacare as a condition of financing the government, and Kentucky Republican Sen. Rand Paul earlier last year led a protest of the Obama administration’s drone policy that stretched into the wee hours of the morning.

Senate Democrats are urging people to tweet about their effort using the hashtag #Up4Climate.

]]>http://go.bloomberg.com/political-capital/2014-03-10/senates-climate-change-all-nighter-look-whos-skipping-the-party/feed/0Obama 2.0: Playing Small, Thinking Bighttp://go.bloomberg.com/political-capital/2014-02-23/obama-2-0-playing-small-thinking-big/
http://go.bloomberg.com/political-capital/2014-02-23/obama-2-0-playing-small-thinking-big/#commentsSun, 23 Feb 2014 14:55:25 +0000http://blogs.edit.bloomberg.com/political-capital/?p=122029It’s that time of year when the White House rolls out select samplers, small pieces of the big new federal budget the president will propose to Congress. This is, after all, a roughly $4 trillion package. So the $140 million for two manufacturing innovation initiatives led by the Defense Department in the Midwest, which President […]

]]>It’s that time of year when the White House rolls out select samplers, small pieces of the big new federal budget the president will propose to Congress.

This is, after all, a roughly $4 trillion package.

So the $140 million for two manufacturing innovation initiatives led by the Defense Department in the Midwest, which President Barack Obama plans to offer in the budget he delivers to Congress on March 4, is relatively small ball. Bloomberg’s Angela Greiling Keane writes that the White House will roll this out on Tuesday.

Yet, with an institute to be located in the Detroit area focusing on “lightweight and modern metals manufacturing” — aluminum, titanium and high-strength steel manufacturers working with universities and labs on research and development — and with a digital manufacturing institute in Chicago hosting manufacturing and software companies developing “interoperable software and hardware for supply chains and to reduce manufacturing costs,” this could be the start of something big. Certainly the 41 companies that will be part of the consortium, including Boeing Co. and Caterpillar Inc., must think so.

At the same time, the White House will propose “an election-year spending blueprint,” as Bloomberg’s Roger Runningen and Richard Rubin call it, “leaving out a proposal to reduce cost-of-living adjustments for Social Security and other benefit programs, while adding $56 billion for domestic and defense programs and seeking more revenue through taxes. ”

Details released last week “indicate that Obama isn’t counting on reaching a so-called grand bargain with Republicans in Congress to reduce U.S. debt and will press ahead with spending plans for education, job training and research that he says will bolster middle-income Americans.

“There was a point in time when there was a little bit more optimism about the willingness of Republicans to budge on closing some tax loopholes, but over the course of the last year, they’ve refused to do that,” says Josh Earnest, a White House spokesman.

Republicans, Runningen and Rubin report, blame the White House for the impasse. Obama’s decision on cost-of-living increases for government programs shows “no interest in doing anything, even modest, to address our looming debt crisis,” says Brendan Buck, a spokesman for House Speaker John Boehner of Ohio.

Then there is that big question of climate change.

The president is attempting to to press regulations through the Environmental Protection Agency curbing carbon emissions from coal-fired power plants. Studies forecast a 3.6-degree Fahrenheit warming of the planet by the century’s end, thanks to the burning of fossil fuels.

The Forest Service says the warming climate is likely to encourage a 50 percent increase in wildfires across the country — and 100 percent in the Western states — by 2050, the New York Times notes in a weekend report about another small piece of the president’s budget: Authorizing the federal government to pay for the fighting of wildfires the way it pays for other natural disasters. The Times says the president will roll this out at a Washington meeting of Western governors.

That federal wildfire funding runs to about $3.5 billion a year now.

In the realm of a second-term president facing midterm congressional elections that could cost his party control of the Senate — with the president’s own health care initiative serving as the fodder that Republicans hope to use against incumbent Democrats in key states — the White House cannot hope to get much of anything very big out of that election-year Congress. These budget proposals from a president, even in easier times, seldom come out of Congress the way they go in.

“Obamacare,” as it may forever be known, was the big budgetary and social product of the first-term Obama.

Simply averting the Affordable Health Care Act’s unraveling could be the big success of Obama 2.0.

Until the question of political control for the second half of the president’s second term is settled, it’s unlikely that anything big will come of any budget talks.

The White House is more likely to keep its long-range eyes on the big pictures of reenergizing the economy and defusing the threat of climate change — and maybe even accomplishing something in immigration next year — while hoping for the best with some small solutions in the meantime.

]]>http://go.bloomberg.com/political-capital/2014-02-23/obama-2-0-playing-small-thinking-big/feed/0Homeland Security: Guarding Against Threats of Climate Changehttp://go.bloomberg.com/political-capital/2014-02-13/homeland-security-guarding-against-threats-of-climate-change/
http://go.bloomberg.com/political-capital/2014-02-13/homeland-security-guarding-against-threats-of-climate-change/#commentsThu, 13 Feb 2014 16:55:14 +0000http://blogs.edit.bloomberg.com/political-capital/?p=121543A top U.S. homeland security official testified this week that the nation must be better prepared to handle extreme weather events sparked by a warming planet. David Heyman, assistant secretary for the department’s Office of Policy, and other officials told senators that it is critical for the US. to strengthen buildings, roadways, bridges and even […]

Cross country skis on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. on Feb. 13, 2014.

A top U.S. homeland security official testified this week that the nation must be better prepared to handle extreme weather events sparked by a warming planet.

David Heyman, assistant secretary for the department’s Office of Policy, and other officials told senators that it is critical for the US. to strengthen buildings, roadways, bridges and even computer networks in light of storms such as 2012′s Hurricane Sandy, which inflicted an estimated $65 billion in damage.

Such extreme events and other aspects of climate change will cost the nation $1.2 trillion over the next four decades, he said.

Heyman testified before a Senate committee examining the costs of extreme weather events associated with a warming world.

“The increase in frequency and intensity of those extreme weather events are costing our country a boatload of money,” said Sen. Thomas Carper, a Delaware Democrat, chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee.

The hearing was held the same day a snow storm barreled through the South and was headed for Northeastern cities. The storm has left thousands without electricity and snarled air and ground traffic.

The federal government closed today as Washington dug out from its worst snow storm since 2010.

Though scientists continue to debate whether climate change can be blamed for the intensity of any specific storm, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has found that the earth’s temperature has risen 1.5 degrees Fahrenheit since the start of the industrial revolution. It is “extremely likely” that human activity, including the burning of fossil fuels and the associated release of heat-trapping gases, is largely responsible for that increase, the panel found.

Last year, the Government Accountability Office said for the first time that climate change posed a “high risk” to the federal government. “According to the United States Global Change Research Program, the impacts and costliness of weather disasters — resulting from floods, drought, and other events such as tropical cyclones — are expected to increase in significance as previously ‘rare’ events become more common and intense due to anticipated changes in the global climate system,” according to the written testimony of Mark Gaffigan, a managing director at the GAO.

Heyman and Caitlin Durkovich, assistant secretary of homeland security’s Office of Infrastructure Protection, said in prepared testimony that natural disasters “may overwhelm the capacities of critical infrastructure, causing widespread disruption of essential services across the country.”

Preparing to weather those events will save money in the future, the two officials said. They cited a 2004 study that showed that for every dollar spent on mitigating the effects of a disaster, the United States saves four dollars responding to it.

One way the government is trying to help the private sector prepare for such disasters, Heyman said, is a pilot project called Resilience STAR, based on the Energy Star program for appliances. The program will set voluntary standards that ensure houses better handle storms, Heyman said, adding that his department aims to expand that program to cover office buildings, power plants and bridges.

Heyman said in a statement that investing in more resilient infrastructure “will give America an incredible competitive advantage in the long run.”